


Thicker than itself with brother's blood

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Good Intentions 2020 [9]
Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate History, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Ned, given York when Harry was given Wales, wonders how ever he will limit his kingly brother's excesses.At least he has fair Margot to lean on, and his mother's censure to wield as a weapon against Harry.
Series: Good Intentions 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978876
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	Thicker than itself with brother's blood

**Author's Note:**

> Sad that I probably won't ever finish this, but hey - I finally started the Peccatoreboot!

“Had His Majesty made known his desire for my company even just yesterday,” Ned said, gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, “then I should have been better prepared, Eminence.”

The good cardinal guided him by the elbow up the final few steps, and held the door for him - not uncommon, and an honour that shamed Ned constantly. Cardinal Wolsey was singularly accepting of Ned’s limitations, his patience matched only by fair Margot’s, and that seemed to annoy Harry more even than Ned’s personal closeness to the cardinal.

“His Majesty desires your company always, Your Grace,” Cardinal Wolsey said, pausing a moment as if to catch his breath - in reality, allowing Ned to steady himself atop the stairs. “But he had a particular longing to see his brother this morning. It took him suddenly, as such longings do.”

Wolsey had a way of smiling without moving his mouth in moments of extreme sardonicism, and Ned always found it difficult to keep from laughing when he did so.

“Come, Eminence,” he said. “Best not keep my lord and brother waiting.”

Harry was dressed in absurd plum velvet, too fine for such an unremarkable day, and dining on what looked to be pheasant. Arrayed around him were all his friends - Hal Norris and Charles Brandon foremost among them, much to Ned’s dismay. Norris wasn’t so bad, easily led more than anything, but Brandon had always been an insufferable bully, and marrying into the family had only made him worse.

There was a reason Ned remained mostly at home in York, and it was only partly to keep an eye on the Scottish border.

“Majesty,” Wolsey said, dropping into a deeper bow than Ned could comfortably manage. “His Grace of York, as requested.”

Usually, Wolsey detested being sent as Harry’s errand boy, but he was well used to mediating between them - he had once admitted to Ned that he preferred always to be in the room when they spoke. That had been years ago now, perhaps even before Margot’s arrival, and little had happened to improve Ned’s regard for Harry.

Less still had happened to improve Harry’s regard for Ned.

“Ah, brother!” Harry exclaimed, launching himself from his chair in a fine show of good health. Harry was always sure to show off his good health when Ned visited. “Come, sit with us, break your fast!”

“Many thanks, Majesty, but I ate already with our lady mother,” Ned said, wishing to God he’d ignored his fool pride and brought his walking stick. “She sends her regards, and hopes that you are well this morning.”

Harry had been their mother’s favourite when they were children, but they had fallen out over little Henry Fitzroy. All this silliness with Mistress Boleyn was only driving the rift deeper, and Ned was ashamed to admit that he was glad of it.

“Sit with us, York,” Brandon said, waving Ned over as though they were friends. Hah! Ned had never liked Brandon, not since they were children, and the constant dishonour he did May had only compounded that. No doubt the bastard smelled of some other woman’s perfume even now, and no doubt Harry had congratulated him on his conquest. “You as well, Wolsey. Come, sit a while, take the weight off - the king is celebrating.”

Ned sat. The Cardinal sat. Neither said a word.

“Charles is right,” Harry said. “I  _ am  _ celebrating - shall I tell you why, Ned?”

“If it please your Majesty.”

“Anne has accepted me as a suitor,” Harry said, eyes as dark as their lady grandmother’s had been, but wild in a way Ned could not imagine of Margaret Beaufort. “And we have begun discussing the future.”

Wolsey had gone very still. Ned couldn’t blame him.

*

“Her prospects are utterly ruined,” Margot pointed out that night, as they readied for bed. “If Anne does not play your brother’s game, what else is there left for her? No one believes that she has not given him her maidenhead, and it is a rare man who will take on another’s mistress.”

“And that only if Harry ever lets her go,” Ned agreed, scrubbing his hands through his hair in frustration. Marriage! As though it were a simple thing to annul a fruitful marriage, as though Katherine had done anything to deserve such ill treatment! There was no more faithful and devoted wife in all of England, save Ned’s own Margot, and Harry was a fool if he thought it wholly Katherine’s fault that none of their poor little sons had survived the cradle. “Ah, if there was some way to make him see reason-”

“When last did anyone save the Cardinal manage such a thing?”

“Saucepot,” Ned said fondly. “Come here, love. Come to bed.”

Margot’s nightgown was a lawn so fine it seemed sheer, and with her beautiful dark hair falling loose about her shoulders she was surely the loveliest thing in Christendom. She tucked herself neatly under Ned’s arm, settling herself with her arm over his chest and her foot tucked about the knee of his bad leg, and then she nipped at him through his nightshirt.

“I worry for the little princess,” she said. “Katherine is fiercer than any man, but your niece is a sweet thing. Any tumult coming to us might sweep her clean away.”

“If it comes to it, we have room for her in York, and I know my lady mother would gladly take her in - she’s always complaining that she doesn’t see her grandchildren enough.”

“Your lady mother mostly says that because she thinks I am too French and Katherine is too Spanish,” Margot teased. “But yes, she would be welcome with us, so long as taking her in did not endanger our boys. I will kill you myself if you allow any harm to come to them.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, lifting her hand to kiss each of her knuckles, one by one. “Would it comfort you to have more sons, for fear of losing one? We could make a start on that now, if it please you-”

“Beast!” she laughed, biting harder now. “I am serious, Edmund! The path ahead of us is a dangerous one - this will go all the way to Rome, and there will be no peace until it is done.”

“If it is simply a question of Harry wanting a male heir, I cannot imagine that His Holiness will capitulate. Not when Katherine’s nephew is emperor.”

“Nor when my brother might support her, if she promised little Mary to our Arthur.”

Margot had suggested that several times - their eldest boy to Harry’s only heir made sense, in Ned’s private opinion, but Harry’s stupid arrogance couldn’t tolerate the notion that their father’s line be continued through anyone’s son but his.

“Your brother and Cardinal Wolsey both would still like to see little Mary matched to the Dauphin.”

“They would,” Margot agreed. “I would as well - I think France might suit her very well. She is such a pretty, mannerly child, and we educate our women better than you do.”

“Don’t dare say such a thing to my mother. Or to Mary’s, for that matter.”

“Oh, Katherine will always dislike me for being a Valois - and your lady mother would understand what I meant. So do you, I think.”

“Would you have the crowns joined, though? Mary as Queen Regnant and Queen, and both crown and crown matrimonial for young Francis?”

“He is as much his mother’s son as he is my brother’s,” Margot said firmly. “He would allow Mary her sovereignty, if that is your concern - but I do not think they would need to consider such a thing. Not when Parliament would have an alternative. A more English alternative that would still guarantee peace with France.”

Ned looked down. Margot’s eyes were warm, dark hazel, and very clever too - but she looked a little apprehensive now, as she only did on the rare occasion she worried about overstepping. 

“Don’t let my brother hear you say things like that,” he said, lifting her hand to his mouth. “His wrath is worse by far than my lady mother’s.”

*

There were some - not many, but a few - who dared to whisper that Ned might someday come to the throne. He thought them as foolhardy as he did brave, for Harry’s temper was mighty when roused, but he had heard them. Sometimes he had even listened.

“He wants an annulment,” his lady mother said, fretfully fussing at the fur trim of her sleeves. “An annulment! That  _ stupid  _ boy!”

“It is not ideal, Majesty,” Cardinal Wolsey agreed, “but if it is the King’s will, I must at least attempt to pursue it.”

“I think he might be less stupid about this than we think,” Ned said, holding tight around Arthur so the poor child didn’t fall from the bench. He’d fallen asleep some four or five miles back, and while Margot would have scolded him for neglecting his grandmother and the cardinal so, Ned was feeling indulgent. Arthur was such a good boy usually that a little indulgence would do no harm, and so Ned had guided him to lay his head against Ned’s leg, and he’d settled the lad as best he could.

York was within sight now. The excitement would wake Arthur right up.

“His Majesty is rarely stupid,” Wolsey said. “Well, not entirely so - there is more to this than simply wanting Mistress Boleyn in his bed, or wanting a son.”

“Wanting a legitimate son is not wrong of Harry, Mother,” Ned said. “You know better than anyone how unwilling people are to throw in behind a female heir. Even if Harry can be prevailed upon to make the smart home match-”

“Which he won’t be, because he sees it as your line superseding his own,” the Cardinal offered helpfully.

“Just so, Eminence,” Ned agreed. “Even if he could be convinced of it, I think he might still push for Mistress Boleyn - she’s set a fire in him, and not just with her, ah, her  _ wiles.” _

“What else has she to offer?” Mother sighed. “She is no fantastic beauty, save for those eyes of hers, and while she is a clever girl-”

“She and her family are Reformers, Majesty,” Wolsey said. “And a Protestant King need not answer to Rome in anything, least of all marital matters.”

The silence that followed that particular declaration was broken only by Arthur’s little snores, and Ned took comfort in his son’s warmth under his arm. Poor Mother looked fit to faint, and even the Cardinal, so bold with his words, seemed struck anew by the terrible possibilities ahead of them.

“It will ruin him on the continent,” Ned said. “Harry will never lower himself to consorting with the German Protestants, and he still dreams of a French conquest. What Frenchmen will take him save the Huguenots?”

“Lutherans,” the Cardinal said, shaking his head. “But they are  _ French _ Lutherans, and so I cannot imagine that even a Protestant Englishman would have their support when a Frenchman who has not burned very many of them for heresy is an alternative.”

“And Margot would never speak to me again if I let Harry overthrow Francis, so I must stand against any such course of action.”

“Fie on you, Edmund Tudor,” Mother said, but without true censure. “No matter that your wife is French-”

“As your husband might have been, in another life.”

“- _ no matter,” _ she said, wagging her finger at him. “I’ll not have you playing nice with them. Margot is one thing, but her brother is  _ quite  _ another, my lad.”

“The only King who has my loyalty is Harry, you need not worry on that front,” Ned said. “I only wish that my King was more willing to listen to, ah, advisors whose tastes do not align quite so closely with his own.”

“Would that he listened to me as keenly as your father did your grandmother,” Mother groused, but she reached over and patted Ned’s knee all the same. “Or even that he gave you half as much credence as you deserve, Ned. I’ll never understand that he lets you languish up here but he keeps stupid Hal Norris on hand all of the time.”

“At least I have my own Hal, Mother,” Ned reassured her, hoping against hope that Harry Percy was in attendance already - nothing ever did Ned as much good after time in London as a dose of Harry’s charming bluntness. “I’d rather Harry keep Norris and be rid of Brandon, but his being our brother now makes that impossible.”


End file.
